


Dragged Under

by celeste9



Category: In Secret (2013)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 16:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11108190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: They see him touch her hand and they think that it is innocent.They do not know what else those hands have done.





	Dragged Under

**Author's Note:**

> For the h/c bingo May challenge, for the prompt 'grief'.

They think she is grieving.

Perhaps she is.

It is easier, certainly, than she had thought it would be. When Thérèse sat in Laurent’s dark, dingy room and agreed that perhaps her husband should meet with an accident, she had thought it would be more difficult to pretend.

Now Thérèse is not certain she is even pretending.

She remembers the water, and the way she screamed. She remembers this so she does not think of how Camille had screamed, and cried, and fought. She does not know why she had ever thought it would be an easy death, why she had thought it would be quiet, why –

Laurent may have held Camille under the water but Thérèse killed him all the same. She should have known it would be terrible.

She thinks maybe she had only wanted too desperately, and made herself believe things her mind should have known weren’t true.

Being with Laurent used to make Thérèse feel alive. Now she feels as though she is slowly dying, being dragged under with Camille.

She thinks that it should not be this much work, to be with someone you love.

She wonders sometimes if it wouldn’t have been better that she had never met Laurent, that she had never known the wild pleasures he could offer, never craved the fire that his touch built within her. Her life had been miserable then but at least she had never – 

They are more careful now, now that Camille is gone. It should have made it all simpler, a pair of eyes she no longer has to hide from, an unwanted body in her bed she no longer has to escape, but her aunt is always watching and so is everyone else. Poor, sad Thérèse, all alone with her grief. How brave she is, how beautiful, how gentle and tender in the face of her tragedy.

She rarely sees Laurent on her own. She is rarely alone with him.

He comes for cards like nothing has changed, like they haven’t killed a man together. She meets his eyes across the table and wonders how they all can not know.

She goes to fix tea and Laurent follows her. He touches her hand and Thérèse reminds herself that this is okay. She lets them see. They must see.

This is how she and Laurent get what they want.

They think she is a dutiful grieving widow, crushed by her loss, because that is the part she is to play. They think Laurent is being a good friend to dear, departed Camille, that Laurent is comforting Camille’s lonely, bereaved widow in her time of need.

(Laurent is very good at playing parts, at doing what is required to get what he wants. Thérèse sees this better now than she ever has before.)

They think it is sweet, and good, and right.

They do not know that Laurent has made her cry with pleasure, that he has buried his tongue between her thighs, that Thérèse has wrapped her legs around his waist and tugged his hair and bit his shoulder. They do not know that she has sobbed for him while he has whispered in her ear all the filthy things he would like to do to her.

They see him touch her hand and they think that it is innocent.

They do not know what else those hands have done.

Once Thérèse risks it. She sneaks out in the night and finds him; she goes to that dark, dingy room, lit by candlelight. Thérèse has always liked the way the glow of candles looks on Laurent’s skin, the way it casts him in amber and bronze, how warm he looks. His smooth, beautiful skin and his strong arms that hold her like Camille never could.

(She is not thinking of Camille, cold, blue, rotting.)

_This is why we did it,_ she thinks, with Laurent’s lips on her skin, his fingers teasing her. She sits in his lap and sinks down onto him and thinks, _this can be mine, this can be ours, he is mine, I am his, all the mornings we can wake up together and have this, this, this._

She tips her head back, baring her throat, and she tells herself it was worth it.

She cannot stay because it is not theirs yet, but she lies beside him for as long as she dares and listens to his heartbeat. _Laurent,_ she thinks, and tells herself he loves her. She tells herself she loves him, she has always loved him, she will always love him.

Thérèse looks at the imprint of teeth on Laurent’s neck and knows that it was not her teeth. She looks and knows the horror of what they did together.

She looks at Laurent and wants him less with every moment that he is closer to being truly hers.


End file.
